In times of grieving
by TheOneTrueBear
Summary: "And God seriously what is with that suit Klaus, who freaking died?" After the crossover Caroline heads to New Orleans looking for Stefan.


**Caroline's POV TO S2E21**

She finds Klaus loitering outside Rousseau's looking the same of course and yet very un-Klaus-like in his dark suit and neatly combed hair.

He's leaning against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes shut, so distracted that he doesn't sense her approach till she barks his name impatiently. "Klaus," she snaps as the fear that's been broiling in her gut since Stefan first disappeared boils over into misdirected anger.

The hybrid turns his gaze to her. "Caroline?" he asks sluggishly, as if he doesn't have the energy to be surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"What?" she sputters in disbelief. "What the hell do you think I'm doing here? I'm looking for Stefan." Her hands find her hips as she slips easily back into the comfortable familiarity of chiding him. "You know, my boyfriend who you said you'd protect and who hasn't been seen since you kicked him out of your city?"

Klaus doesn't respond, just rubs his eyes and sighs tiredly. Something like worry pokes at her then, but she's been preparing her rant all the way here and there'll be no stopping it coming out now.

"You said you'd watch out for him. I thought he was coming home." She waves a hand around to encompass all of New Orleans. "Instead you throw him out of town to God knows where. Leaving me waiting at home changing diapers and going crazy with worry."

"Caroline." Finally Klaus speaks. "My sister nullified the draw of the huntress' mark before Stefan left. All he has to do is lay low and she will not find him."

"Great, that's great. So he just vanishes and I'm supposed to be ok with that?"

"I would have thought you had other priorities, Caroline." Irritation flashes briefly in his eyes but it fizzles quickly and he looks down.

Her metaphorical footing slips. He's supposed to bite back. That's their thing, they push each other's buttons, get under each other's skin till they're both pissed enough to make something happen. This apathetic version of the hybrid unsettles her.

"I do," she growls. "But just because I have the girls doesn't mean I stop worrying about Stefan."

"Right." He sighs and shifts a little away from the wall, clearly ready to walk away from her. "You should go home. Stefan will be fine."

He has his back to her now, but her voice stops him and he turns back to face her unwillingly. "Klaus, seriously?" she throws up her hands in exasperation. "I need to know where he is, why he hasn't called. God, _anything_. You saw him last, you could help, but you're just playing the tragic villain and packing me off with 'he'll be fine'? And God seriously what is with that suit Klaus, who freaking died?"

His eyes snap to hers and his expression could break the stoniest heart. "Oh god," she whispers at the sight of his shattered eyes. "Who died?"

He squeezes his eyes shut, the action forcing a single tear from between the lids that sparkles in the afternoon sunshine as it rolls unchecked down his cheeks. "Camille," he croaks, and then a little stronger and with his eyes opening to find hers again. "Her name was Camille."

"God Klaus I-" she trails off, shaking her head. "I'm sorry."

He nods and clenches his jaw, fighting down emotion that seems on the brink of overwhelming him. And it's more than just curiosity that drives her to come closer and to ask softly, "Who was she?"

He swallows, and she can see how hard he has to fight to speak without crying. "She was the bartender here at Rousseau's, resident psychologist to the supernatural and the last of the O'Connells in New Orleans."

"No," she can't help but touch him then, the sight of a creature as powerful and terrible as he undoubtedly is so grief stricken makes her heart ache in sympathy. She takes his hand in hers and pulls it, unresisting, close to her own hip. "Who was she to you?"

He doesn't answer so she leads him by the hand into a quiet corner of the bar. She can see the wake under way in the main room. Camille must have been a popular lady, the bar is packed with people and monsters celebrating her life with whiskey and laughter.

She sits opposite Klaus away from the noise, lays their joined hands on the table between them and prompts him gently. "Tell me"

"She was my ally, my therapist and my friend." He begins in a hoarse voice. "She was brave, and stubborn, and loyal and relentlessly understanding. So much so that despite knowing every terrible thing I've done, that I am, despite that, she found something in me worthy of her love." He closes his eyes and his lips part in a shaky sigh. "And she was beautiful."

Helplessness infuses her as her heart cracks with pity. "I'm sorry," she offers, that trite useless condolence she hated hearing when her mother died and yet falls inevitably now from her own lips. "I am so, so sorry."

"I would have broken all my promises to you for an eternity with her," he says it like a confession. It feels like the truest thing he's ever said to her and suddenly, ironically, it is only in the moment he tells her he'd have broken that epic promise to be her last love she realises he'd meant it.

In that instant, as the promise she'd never really believed cracks around her, she loves him. Loves him in a lost moment in time between when he'd meant it and when he hadn't anymore.

"I'm glad," she says and, honestly, she is. She claims him and releases him in her heart in the space of a moment, transforming him from the bane of her existence to the one that got away without understanding or questioning how. "I'm glad you found someone, however briefly."

He nods and she can see him gather himself. "You need to go."

"No, Klaus." The thought of walking away from him when he's suffering is somehow unthinkable. "I can't just leave you like this."

"You must," he insists. "Lucian killed Camille for no greater crime than that I loved her. If he knew even a fraction of what you mean to me-"

He leaves the sentence hanging and she frowns. She's not surprised to hear him declare the depth of his affection for her, but to see him so openly afraid is disconcerting. "But-" she thinks of her mission here, to find Stefan. She thinks of Klaus' broken heart and she can't bring herself toleave.

"Caroline -" He stands and she goes with him. His hands grasp her shoulders as strong and hot as ever but she senses a quaver in them that makes her shudder. "Stefan attracts trouble and I create it. You should stay away from both of us. Go home, to your daughters."

She wants to fight him on this but he doesn't let her speak. "Go home Caroline, give your children that which I cannot give my own. A life free from their parents' enemies, peace, safety."

"But-"

"Please go," he pleads, his voice cracking on the words. But it's not the emotion in his voice, it's the desperation in his eyes that convinces her.

She's crying when she nods her assent. "Ok."

His hand flattens her hair against her cheek and he tries to offer comfort. "Stefan's a big boy sweetheart, he can look after himself for a decade or two while your daughters need you."

"Can you?" she asks hoarsely and tragedy frames his once playful smile.

"I suppose time will tell. Goodbye, Caroline."

On impulse, she kisses his lips in a fleeting second of intimacy she offers simply because she has nothing else to give. "Bye."

Then she goes, because he's right and she can feel the draw of her children across the miles a hundred times stronger than the pull of Stefan or the insistent tugging of the hybrid at her heart.

Her babies are sleeping when she gets home so she sits in their low-lit room and counts their heartbeats. She breathes in time with their whispered snores and pushes the men she loves into a dark room in the centre of her heart and closes the door.

 **Klaus' point of view TO S3E08**

"Mystic Falls." He rolls his eyes when the location of the Hollow's second bone is revealed. "How predictable. Well no matter, Stefan still owes us a favour, I'm sure a little courier work shouldn't be beyond him."

The look Rebekah sends Freya makes alarm bells ring in his mind and he narrows his eyes at them questioningly. It's his younger sister that takes a deep breath and answers in a flat tone. "Stefan's dead, Nik."

Bile rises, a sudden sour wave in his throat. Denial too surges upwards through his body and he shakes his head. "No."

"I'm sorry, Nik."

"Fine," he snarls, rage burning suddenly in his veins. "I'll fetch the damn fossil myself."

Before they can stop him he's already vamping to his car.

On the plane he drinks whiskey and convinces himself with a hundred different fantasies that it isn't true. It's a mistake, or a trick, or an elaborate joke. Stefan Salvatore cannot be dead without him even knowing it.

Children swarm around the boarding house, each one reeking of magic of one kind or another. He ignores them and stares at the sign. "The Salvatore School." Stefan's name is on the God damn sign, surely that is proof enough that he lives.

But with every brisk step he takes towards the school's office, towards her, his denial cracks a little more.

Her voice when his name falls surprised from her lips, cracks in that way it always seemed to when ever she saw him again. The way that used to fuel his hope that she wasn't unaffected by him. Right now he barely registers the husky emotion in it.

"Stefan? Is it true?" he bites out the question, realising as he does that he came for her, because only when he hears it from her will he believe it.

Her eyes are soft with sympathy even in the face of his pointless simmering rage. She nods and steps around the desk to stand with him. "Yes"

He hears his own breath tremble as he sucks it in and he shakes his head and looks at the floor.

"I'm sorry Klaus," her fingers brush lightly through the hair at his temple. "Hey."

He'd fight the moistening of his eyes if it was anyone but her, but she always seems to be the one around when he's weak and he's never found it in him to hide it from her. "How?"

"Heroically," she says simply and her eyes shine, not with the pain of grief but with the love and pride of her memories. "Of course."

He huffs out a half-laugh that transforms into a desperate swallow to keep from crying. "Of course."

She watches him for a moment, that familiar little line carved between her brows. Her husband is dead and she's worried about _him_. That realisation makes him straighten his shoulders and nod.

She pours him a ludicrously large measure of bourbon which he drinks in equally large swigs while she sips her own modest tumbler. "You only just heard?" she asks. "I thought you always knew everything."

"I've been a little," he searches for a word. "Indisposed. Five years in a dungeon will put anyone out of the loop."

Caroline nods. "Ah, that explains why you were AWOL when I came to New Orleans a couple of years back."

He frowns and she explains. "It wasn't long before Stefan died, I was looking for a safe place to hole up with the twins."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, sweetheart."

She smiles warmly at his sincerity. "It's ok, we went to Disneyland instead, best month of my life."

He laughs, though its weak in his own ears, and her expression turns sympathetic again. "I'm sorry no one told you about Stefan, I know you guys were friends back in the twenties."

"We were," he swirls his drink. "Funny to be immortal and still to have run out of time."

She nods her understanding and her eyes look into the past making him wonder what she too has left unsaid. She grabs the bottle and moves to the other side of the office where a large leather couch stands under the window.

"Let's get drunk."

He shrugs and smiles brokenly. "Ok."

Two bottles later she slaps his arms. "Fre-nemies," she sounds out, the pointed enunciation dulled by the slight slur of alcohol. "As in friends and enemies. You and Stefan, frenemies."

"Sorry love, but I speak most of the languages on the planet and that is definitely not a word."

"Well it might not be a word," her pout is adorable perfection, "but it is a fact."

Suddenly he feels serious. "I wanted that, you know," he tells her and it sounds almost like a confession. "I wanted my friend back."

"Yeah well lucky for us that didn't work out." She gives a theatrical shudder. "Your ripper buddy Stefan was a total car crash."

"I'm aware. Truth be told,I wanted him back, so I tried to make him what he was. I was too conceited to consider that it was I that needed to change."

She watches him for long heavy moments in the wake of his confession, then shakes her head and snorts. "Ok that is way more personal growth than I can handle from you," she stands taking his hand and dragging him with her. "Dance with me."

She feels good in his arms. Her body cool and supple, her breath a warm tickle on his skin. "I missed you," she whispers and he realises with a jolt that he's being seduced. His grief is fresh. Cami's ghost haunts his dreams, Stefan's loss is a blade in his still broken heart. Hers is years old, perhaps she's ready to move on.

"Caroline, Stefan-"

"Is gone," she cuts him off. "We loved him and he's gone. So is Camille. Seems like none of us are immortal enough to waste time, Klaus."

She kisses him then and he's back to being so in love with her his head won't stop spinning. It's different from loving Cami, different from that soul deep connection, that aching longing to be seen as only Camille ever saw him. Loving Caroline isn't about him at all, its about her and just being in her blinding light.

He wants her, God how he wants her. Openly and without regret and yet he pulls away and shakes his head because, damn their timing, he's just not ready. "Caroline."

"Right, ok." Her smile is rueful and a little embarrassed but he fancies there's understanding too in her bright blue eyes. "I guess you have stuff you need to do."

"Indeed," they stand awkwardly for a moment. "This school is truly a wonderful endeavour, you should be very proud."

"We are," she says with a decisive nod. "And just so we're clear, Hope is always welcome here. We have a kick-ass potions professor."

"I'll keep it in mind," he gives a small bow, the habits of chivalry always surface in her presence. "Thank you, Mrs. Salvatore."

For a second her eyes hard and unreadable. "No one calls me that," she tells him without emotion.

"Apologies."

"No, I like it." She tips her head and smiles sadly. "Married for a day is still married right?"

He doesn't have an answer, so he just brushes her hair back from her face and looks into her beautiful eyes. She holds his gaze until he has no choice but either kiss her or look away. So he kisses her, pulls her into his arms and runs his mouth over hers, not as a prelude but as a parting and maybe, just maybe, a new promise.

Alaric interrupts them, frowning with disapproval at walking in on them together like this, and he thinks it'll be decades, at least a lifetime, till they get a chance together. He's in no rush, perhaps by then his grief will have faded, perhaps he'll be ready for her then.

He retrieves the bone and heads back to New Orleans, to his daughter and their coming battle. He has to focus on that, so he shuts his grief for Stefan and Cami away in the deepest dungeon in his heart, neatly tucks his love for Caroline away again in that quiet corner which has always been just hers, and goes home.

 **Klaus POV**

Nothing in more than one thousand years has hurt this much. No loss or betrayal, certainly no physical suffering has come close to the pain of this. The breath he could live without labours in his lungs and his shattered heart beats with a dread slowness in his chest.

Hope, his daughter, his light, his truest love, is gone.

In private he has wept till the dryness in his throat and the wetness of his face make him feel almost mortal. In public, he wears an iron mask that never slips even the tiniest fraction. Strange how in the past he's never been ashamed or afraid of letting the world see his pain, but now, when it is at its worst, he hides it away. Perhaps it is just too great, perhaps he knows that if he shows it then it will consume him. Or perhaps it is his alone and he has no wish to share it.

Before him the gleaming hearse moves at walking pace, flowers and mahogany blurring in its windows, a stark contrast of colour against its blackness. Hayley walks beside him, head held high, eyes dry and proud, and he loves her more than he could ever make her understand. And yet he hates her too, though only faintly, because without her he would not be suffering this.

He fumbles for her hand and she moves away from his brother and comes close to his side. He marvels once again at how she has always walked the tightrope between her love of Elijah and the unbreakable bond she shares with him with the finesse of a dancer and the guileless verity of a child.

With her close he feels just a fraction stronger, lifts his own head to mirror her pride and pulls hungrily at her fathomless strength. It has only been in the reflection of Hayley's fierce, loving, uncompromising motherhood that he has truly seen how wretched a mother Esther was. His respect for Haley has grown over the years with every sacrifice he's seen her make, every rule she's enforced, every simple act of caring, and there has not been a single moment since the day his daughter was born that he has not been grateful that Hayley was her mother.

When he watches the coffin laid in Lafayette he hears a tiny crack as his grip on Hayley's hand fractures some small bone. She doesn't pull away, just turns her eyes to his and squeezes back gently. A part of him would hold her then, pull this woman who he loves, who gave him the greatest gift he has received in a millennia, into his arms. Crush her body to his. Weep into her hair and feel her tears soak his chest. But that is not their way so he holds her hand and tries not to scream out loud.

The wake fills him with waves of crashing nausea and he'd run from the tearful laughter of fond recollections if he could. The beast beneath his skin rails against the warm tones of joy that mingle with the grief and begs to tear apart anyone who dares smile or laugh, however sadly, while his baby lies cold in the ground.

Except he cannot because these soft smiles, these tearful laughs, belong to the people he loves most in all the world. His family stretches over five generations. Innocent children untouched by grief play around the mourners and grandparents with grey-flecked hair smile at their antics. How human, he thinks.

"Granddad," Hope's eldest daughter comes to his side and perches herself, lithely for a woman of nearly a hundred, on a table beside him. "You ok?"

He can't speak, but he wouldn't lie to her so he simply shakes his head and clenches his jaw against the onset of tears he's determined not to cry in public. She moves to touch him but must read the warning look on his face and nods her understanding. "'K, I'll see you later."

He manages a tiny smile for her because he's loved her so much for so long. The day she was born burns brightly in his memory as the most joyful of his long life. Hope had glowed in exhausted pride and held the tiny squirming bundle out for him to hold. "Dad, meet Mary."

He hadn't questioned the choice, Mary Kenner had after all always been all the grandmother Hope had ever needed. Still Hope had chosen to explain with a laugh. "I thought Esther didn't really work, bit too evil."

He'd laughed too. "Of course, your auntie Beks might take it hard though."

"Rebekah'll get her chance, there'll be plenty of Mikaelson witches to come."

And there were, a whole coven's worth fills the room, drinking to their lost matriarch. He can see beautiful blonde Rebekah, Mary's youngest, talking to her equally beautiful namesake across the room. There's a Freya sitting under the table with her cousin Elijah playing jacks. The family does have a tradition of honouring their ever-living ancestors.

He thinks he might leave. He should stay of course to support Hope's bereaved children and grandchildren, but he doesn't think he has the strength to bear the horrible humanity of this. Each beloved face he sees from Mary, whose spells still keep her beautiful, to toddling Peter stealing cake with a wicked glint in his eye that's worryingly reminiscent of Kol at that age, reminds him of all the pain to come. Powerful as he is he knows he's never really been all that strong, certainly not strong enough to bear so much loss.

He turns to leave and there she is. A vision of blue and blonde and sympathy. "Hello, Klaus."

"Caroline," he stumbles over the name, although he doesn't know why he's so surprised to see her. Times of mourning are becoming their tradition it seems. "You came."

"Of course." She takes his hand and leads him to a corner table and in a move so reminiscent of when Camille died lays their joined hands between them on the slightly sticky table top. "Talk," she commands.

He sighs. "What can I say that you yourself do not already understand?"

"Not much I guess." She runs her thumbs over the eternally perfect skin on the back of his hand. "Talk anyway."

So, he does, miraculously without breaking down; he tells her that this is beyond endurance, not just in this terrible moment of loss but stretching out across the centuries before him. Death after death after death until he is nothing but a broken husk of grief.

She nods in pensive understanding. "What did you tell me when Josie died?" she asks him softly.

He remembers quite clearly that funeral, how she'd seen him cautiously slipping into her daughter's wake and had almost run to him. How she'd been in his arms trembling and sobbing as if it was the first moment of true grief she'd allowed herself. The lies he'd told her that day come back to him now.

"I told you, that while we would lose we would gain in equal measure. That we would die and be reborn with every generation. That we would survive to know a joy our kind is denied."

She smiles sadly and nods, "Well there you go."

"I was wrong," he responds vehemently coming to his feet in agitation. "I was a fool. This cannot be survived, this will destroy us."

"Maybe, it certainly feels that way sometimes. But look," she stands too and points to a granddaughter's swollen belly (he calls them all grandchildren, it is too complicated to try and keep track of the greats). "There'll be another Mikaelson for the world to deal with soon. You'll see these kids grow up and make their lives. You'll be there for all of it. Who in the world gets to see so much?"

Her words hold no comfort, all he sees in each innocent, hopeful face is another death waiting to happen. She sees the tears threaten his eyes before he even knows it and he feels her arms about his waist and a rush of air as she vamps them to the quiet safety of an empty back room.

His head spins with the sudden changes in velocity and she doesn't release her hold on his waist so he buries his head in the sweet-smelling skin of her neck and cries. Her hands are far more eloquent than her trite murmured condolences. They move over his body with a healer's touch, soothing and cool against his skin.

In the end she falls silent and just holds him and cries for him against his cheek, while he weeps for his beloved Hope.

Hours later they're still entwined though finally they've been able to talk. "This is our humanity," she'd told him and he'd wondered if one day he might agree. "This is our gift and our curse."

"How shall we survive it?"

"I guess we just will, it's not like we have a choice, is it?" She's right, ironically in a way, because of course they do have a choice, it's simply an option they both know to be unthinkable.

She disentangles herself from his arms and checks her watch.

"Stay with me," he shocks himself with that blurted plea but she looks unsurprised as she gently shakes her head in refusal. "Surely," he tries. "Surely it's our time."

She shakes her head sympathetically. "Not yet," she tells him gently. "We can't start anything from this."

She's right, clinging to her in grief is no way to start the relationship they both know to be inevitable. Still he tries, because he's weak and sad and desperate. "I need you."

"No," she tells him firmly tilting her head towards the sound of the wake filtering through the walls. "You need _them_."

She kisses him gently and walks to the door. "Soon," she says simply and then she's gone, leaving him to go back to his family and discover how much more pain he can survive.

 **Klaus' POV a few months later**

They name the baby Henry for a long-lost uncle. He's glad it was a boy, there had been talk of calling the latest addition to his clan Hope in honour of her great grandmother. He isn't sure he could have borne it.

Or maybe he could, because the infant is soft-skinned and round faced, with Hayley's earth green eyes and the familiar scent of his daughter's magic on his skin. He smiles, for the first time in the long months since he buried his daughter he smiles with genuine wonder, genuine happiness.

They hold the christening in the French Quarter, the Mikaelson coven has made this place its home for generations now, they are part of the city and it a part of them. As he steps into the room he is immediately ambushed by three small, eager, attackers.

"Granddad" they squeal excitedly and he picks the two smallest up, one in each arm, and bounces them wildly till they squeal and giggle. Then he looks quizzically at the third and initiates a game he and this fiery-tempered little witch have played since she was old enough to talk.

"And who's this fine lady?"

"Granddad" the six-year-old moans and rolls her eyes. "It's me, Ava."

"I'm quite sure it's not," he responds. "Ava is a baby, and you, well you are obviously quite the grown-up lady."

She giggles as she always does. "Don't be silly, it's me."

He grins. "So it is. Well then its fortunate I brought a present for a lady then."

There's a buzz of excitement as he indulges the youngest generation with expensive gifts as he always does. William looking awkward in his teenage skin hovers a little out of range, caught between considering himself too old for such displays and still young enough to very badly want to be a part of it.

Klaus is no novice, he's walked this adolescent line with four generations now. "Hello mate," he casually tosses a small box in the boy's direction and pretends not to watch as the cool teenager dissolves into childish excitement at the top of the range VR handheld inside.

"You spoil them!" their mother chides as she comes to kiss his cheek.

"As I spoiled you in your turn," he reminds her. "And here's the star of the show."

The baby is passed into his arms and he studies the sleeping face intently, memorising every detail. These are the gains, the highs he must savour if he is to find way to survive the sorrows that inevitably come with loving mortals. He places a kiss on the warm soft head and hands the baby back to his mother with a smile.

Then he feels her and whips round to see her dressed in pale blue and smiling softly. "Hey," she greets.

"Caroline, sweetheart, what are you doing here?" he asks as he comes to stand before her.

"Changing the story," she says enigmatically and he frowns his lack of understanding. "Fix me a drink first, it's been a long drive."

He makes her a whisky and soda and she sips the drink gratefully before explaining. "I met a guy," she tells him and he feels jealousy settle like heavy silt in his gut.

"I see," he says stiffly, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be away from her. To find a quiet place where he can beat down the dream of her he's held so long and lock it away.

She rolls her eyes. "Rarely," she snorts. "Geez."

"Caroline."

"I met a guy," she continues. "Great guy, handsome, funny, crazy into me," she shrugs. "A friend was trying to talk me into going on a date with him, you know what I said?"

"I can't imagine," he still feels jealous and vulnerable so his reply is bitten out defensively.

Caroline doesn't seem to notice, she just continues almost introspectively. "I said 'If I were single I'd totally date him.'"

She seems to imagine her words will mean something to him but he just feels utterly bamboozled and his face must mirror his confusion exactly.

She huffs irritably. "Hello, Klaus, I am single. I'm a gorgeous, immortal, single woman. But I don't go on dates, I haven't had anything more than a fling in a century, and that is just ridiculous."

Hope replaces jealousy in a rush and he looks down briefly, suddenly feeling bashful. "So, you're here because-?"

"Because we both know this," she waves between them with sharp irritated gestures. "This is inevitable. But this is never going to happen if we only see each other when somebody dies."

He feels another genuine smile, a hopeful smile, spread on his face. Knows this isn't the sexy crooked smile Camille chided him for using like a weapon against her, or the proactive smirk that's caught Caroline's eye more than once. This is a big, bright natural smile and hers reflects it perfectly.

"Ok," he says simply and she rolls her eyes.

"Ok?" she laughs and steps up close to him. "Better introduce me to the family then."

"And what should I introduce you as, love?" he asks playfully, although honestly he'd be glad of the clarification.

She glares over the top of an indulgent quirk of her mouth, "How about Caroline? We can work up to labels if you don't drive me to murder."

He grins at her already exasperated tone, he imagines he'll hear a lot more of it over the years, and she rolls her eyes. "Come on" she takes his hand and pulls him towards the curious members of his family covertly watching them from near the buffet. Towards a future of love and loss, of joy and agony that perhaps together they will find a way to survive.


End file.
